Soyeon 'Dottie' Kim is a filmmaker, illustrator & educator. This is where Soyeon shares her stories about her art and life. Samples of Soyeon's work can be viewed at www.soyeonkimart.com. She also runs a Design/Animation studio, YELLOWSHED with her partner, Todd Hemker: www.yellowshed.com

Yellowshed (Todd & Soyeon) made an animated intro clip for the Keith Urban's 'Kiss A Girl' music video, which is also screened during Keith Urban's 2009 ACM award performance.

Symbolic icon 'Bird' was designed, animated in traditional methods (using papers, pencils), then inked using brush pens, scanned the images, then composited in After Effects. NY city background was created in Photoshop, then combined with digitally treated green-screen footage of Keith Urban.

In the final music video, this intro footage is followed by the main sequence that NY based animator/artist, Richard Borge directed, who created unique artistic look of photo montage/live action for the spot. The concept was written by Chris Hickey.

YELLOWSHED's 30 second intro clip was on Keith Urban website as a 'sneak peak preview' until the official music video came out.

Friday, May 1, 2009

After having spent most time working on studio projects for the clients for years (which I enjoy..., but it's definitely different from doing my own), I wanted to perk up my nerves on my 'experimental' side of brain.

The footage was made based on two dancers moving behind the screen (back-lid). It was shot on video, then I printed out selected frames. I created various shapes and images by adding drawings or paintings on top, cutting out shapes and re-composing them in layers, then re-exposed them under the down-shooter camera. Images were also multiplied and/or rearranged in Adobe Photoshop and After Effects.

Music was composed by my multi-talented friend, Tim Samoff, who was actually my classmate from animation program at Calarts.

This film has been selected for Int'l Film Festivals, and am really excited and looking forward to showing it to the public!

Friday, April 10, 2009

After a week's public votes, Soyeon's sand animation, 'WHERE, THERE, HERE' has won the broadcast slot for this week. The Reel 13 Shorts program airs this Saturday, 9 pm EST, April 11th, 2009, on Thirteen/WNET, PBS New York.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

I made the original footage of this film, using sand within 2 days, a while ago... It was shot using a video camera on a U-matic tape. I only meant to play with sand, not intending to complete this as an actual film.

Last year, I put the assembly of this movie clips on the website and, to my surprise, I received several requests to screen it in film festivals. So I brought the footage into a computer, cleaned up the image. There wasn't much I could do to improve the quality of the imagery, but I was able to fix some glitches.

I am just happy that this film has been shown to public in many places including Asia, Europe & America! The result is surly... way beyond my original expectation on this film!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

It was right between our move from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, flying back and forth, trying to finish up all the businesses in Minnesota (I was still working on 'Make It Happen' PSA at Make and teaching at Ai-Minnesota) as well as selling the house in the bad housing market....

Well, it was definitely a challenge, but we made the transition all right.

More information: full credits & festival screenings of the spot can be found at yellowshed's blog

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Here are the style frame, boards & animatic for the pitch on the Opening Titles for the 'Pushing Daisies'. We didn't get the job, but we had fun coming up with the imagery & concept for the Titles of the show.

I recently discovered that you can create custom pre-paid cards by mixing and matching some illustration elements in the Starbucks website. Here are two cards that I assembled, one for Todd, and one for myself above. I wish... I could put both of us in the same card with my pups... just like this below... : )

I worked as a video artist on Disney's "Toy Story-The Musical", theatrical musical show that had its debut in Disney's Cruise Line in Florida, back in 2008 Spring.

I went on cruise for rehearsal, but haven't actually seen the final show yet. I was told that the show has been so successful and will also launch in Disneyland. Yeah!

You can see the show video footage via youtube. (link to part 1 out of total 7 parts)

It is not probably as exciting as what you can experience in the theatre, but hopefully I get to see the real show soon in LA.

The set was amazing: many shots were based on toys' point of view, so all objects in the room are in gigantic scale... I had a lot of fun looking at the set and how things are integrated among each others as well as with actors/actresses.

Video was used in two projection screens: front & rear.

It is used as set backdrop images, for camera panning in scenery changes, and transitions among shots...

Video animation production was done in Duck studio.

3D artist created elements that match the art direction of the original Toy Story movie, and video was composited in After Effects for the set to be integrated with actors and stage props.

It was very fun to see how flat video images on two layers of screen can create so much depth on the stage.

I have worked on Disney's educational animation 'Timon and Pumbaa's Safety Smart' series. The first episode is 'At Home' 11 minute animation featuring Timon and Pumbaa from Disney's Lion King feature. My official credit is Art Director. I also animated Timon & Pumbaa in the title sequence and several shots during the movie, designed props, created layout drawings and painted backgrounds, as well as composited shots in After Effects.

I art directed the second spot, 'Goes Green' as well, which was complete at the end of 2008, and am currently working on the third episode 'At Water'.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Here are some design samples for the 3 animated commercial campaign for the 'Plato's Closet'

I was art director/designer as well as animator for the campaign.

The spots were directed by Morgan Williams & Bruce McFarlan at Reelworks studio.

'Limo'

'Couch'

Some additional designs from the style exploration

Article in Digitalcontentproducer.com

Article in Creatie Mac (August 05, 2004)

The artists at Reelworks are also animating commercial projects having recently finished a three-spot campaign for Plato's Closet, a recycling retail store for teens and young adults, via ad agency Periscope.

Highlighting the tagline You have the clothes. We have the cash, the :30 spots feature fashionable young adults in various situations that somehow come upon a pile of cash. In 'Limo', a teen girl walking on the street is thrown a heap of cash from a passing limo. The vibrant spot concludes with motion graphics and real product shots of the diverse brand name clothing available at Plato's Closet. The other two spots follow a similar premise, emphasizing the idea that the store pays for the best spring and summer fashions. 'Couch' opens on a young man listening to music while lying on a couch. A big bag of money suddenly flies through the open window and lands on his lap. In 'Nudge', a love-struck couple strolls along and smiles at each other. The girl nudges her boyfriend who accidentally bumps into a fire escape and is rained upon by a mountain of money.

According to Reelworks Designer/Art Director Soyeon Kim, it was important to study the tastes and style preferences of the target audience. To prepare for the project, Kim researched teen publications to use as reference for the character and wardrobe design.

The goal was to appeal to teen buyers so we created characters that were more realistic in appearance and mannerisms and weren't cartoon-like, remarks Soyeon Kim. This was a really fun and unique project. The first :15 involves character animation and the second is motion graphics so you get to see two different designs and approaches in the same spot. We had a smooth collaboration with the agency creatives and we worked closely to make sure we had the right style and look.